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WAR PAPER 46. 



<?P|e|tory o[ tl^egaisirig f Qrganizatioq 
oj a Keqirrierit oT yoluqteers 

in 1862. 






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COMMAWDE!(Y OF THE DI^TI(ICT OF dOLUIV[BI/l. 



WAR PAPERS. 



46 



^he Stoi^y of IKe IJ^aisiag and ©rgaRiEalion of a 
'^zgirmnz of l/olunteers in. 1862. 

PREPARED BY COMPANION 

Brevet Brigadier General 

ELLIS SPEAR, 

U. S. Volunteers, 



READ AT THE STATED MEETING OF MARCH 4, 1903. 






®he f tovij of the ^ai^iing mA ^x^mmxtmx of 
a Regiment of ifJoUmtov^ iu 1862. 



Heretofore papers wliich have been read before this Coni- 
matidery have related to personal reminiscences of campaigns and 
battles, with all the interest which accompanies the personal 
element in snch affairs. The preservation of these details is 
of great importance, not only for the special interest which 
attaches to them, but because they illustrate the larger actions 
and will be of value to future generations, as showing the very 
body and features of the time. How valuable these minor 
matters are, we perceive plainly by the use made of them as they 
are found in autobiographies and diaries of former generations. 
The knowledge of the manner in which people lived and thought 
and acted in private life throws light upon public affairs and 
public characters. It is interesting, and not unprofitable, to 
know that the Father of his Country in some wrathful mood 
swore roundly ; or that the Philosopher of the Revolution, in his 
younger days, trudged in the streets of Philadelphia with a loaf 
of bread under each arm ; or, when older, was very gay and fes- 
tive in the gay and festive capital of France. 

I propose to continue in the same grave historical vein, but to 
treat of less important affairs. I propose to avoid the beaten 
track of campaigns, battles, marches and skirmishes, and the lux- 
urious life of Libbey or Andersonville prisons, and going back 
to the beginning of things, endeavor to explain how a volunteer 
regiment was raised and gotten into the field, and, incidentally, 
perhaps, to touch upon the character of its officers and men. 

The regiment of which I speak was the last to be organized 



4* 

in its State under tlie call for three hundred thousand men, made 
by the general Government in 1862. It was the last of that 
••' three hundred thousand more " responding to the call of 
" Father Abraham," according to the popular ditty of the time. 
The recruiting was done by private individuals, and at their own 
expense, under the authority of the Governor of the State. 
These private individuals, as a matter of course, expected, as a 
reward for their labor and expenditures, to be commissioned in 
the companies which they might raise. That was the understand- 
ing. Doubtless, in their efforts, the}' were inspired by patriotism, 
but, as was said about the Pilgrim Fatheis, that they " sailed by 
Deuteronomy, modified by an eye to the main chance ; " so there 
was also, with the officers, some modification or further stimulus 
of personal consideration, just as witli the enlisted men — their 
patriotic impulses were somewhat assisted by the bounty of a 
hundred dollars. 

This method of raising troops was an effective one and 
inexpensive to the Government; but as it involved more or 
less of log-rolling amongst his neighbors, and more or less 
persuasion and perhaps promises in the obtaining of recruits on 
the part of the ambitious recruiting officer, it was not so promis- 
ing for future discipline. Nor was the process of selecting line 
officers by their ability or success in persuading their neighbors 
to enlist, a severe test of military fitness. However, these 
considerations did not trouble the Governor nor the impromptu 
recruiting officer, who did not foresee them. He had no 
experience whatever in this line of business, and fortr.nately did 
not look so far ahead. To say that as a rule he was utterly 
green in military matters, is to do injustice to the words. How- 
ever, he might be credited with some enterprise and even 
audacity, for such certainly were required in a young man 
given to serious reflection, who should proposed to organize a 
military company, and to command it in the field, when he scarcely 
knew a line of battle from a line of rail fence. 



Amongst those raising companies were young lawyers who 
had perhaps learned to draw an indictment, but who would not 
then have been able to draw anything in the military line, unless 
it were rations, or the enemy's hre. There were schoolmasters 
whose only qualifications for getting men to the front and 
keeping them there, were based on experience in teaching young 
ideas how to shoot. There were farmers, clerks, and fellows 
just out of college, some graduates and some undergraduates, 
but with not a tried or known military qualification ir. the 
whole squad. I mistake ; there was one who recruited a com- 
pany, and who had been in the Mexican War, but he was 
afterward found to have forgotten most that he had ever learned, 
and was soon found also unable, in the matter of legs, to keep 
up with the procession. And there was another who had had 
experience in an earlier regiment raised in iS6i, but he resigned 
after his first battle. However, with these miscellaneous qualifi- 
cations, unaided by experience, the embryo officers worked 
energetically to enlist the men. The work was largelv, but not 
wholly, of the button-holing order. It was not unattended with 
exciting incidents. Anxious mothers met the recruiting officers 
sometimes in tears and sometimes in wiath. One such, I 
remember, drove him from the premises with a pitchfork. It 
was the first charge he had met and he retreated. The voung 
man, however, got his recruit. The method of recruiting 
at that time would not bear strict investigation. It shared in 
the general and unavoidable slip-shodness and haste which 
marked the whole work of raising great armies out of an 
undrilled and unmilitary population, and on short notice. 
Troops in large numbeis were needed and that urgently. 
Political considerations forbade drafting. They must be raised 
by volunteering. The inducements were bounties to the men 
and commissions to the ofiicers. He who could raise a company 
in the least time was looked upon with the greatest favor 



and, other things being equnl, got the earliest letter in the 
alphabet of the regiment. The recruiting officer did not know 
what kind of a man, of what physical or moral fibre, the 
service required, and had no opportunity to learn. His object 
was to get his hundred men as quickly as possible ; and provided 
the recruit had limbs, organs, and dimensions, that was enough. 
The care of the Governor of the State, and usually his knowledge, 
went also no further. He had the State's quota to fill, and was 
most concerned to fill it as early and as easily as possible. The 
average examining surgeon had no more knowledge of the 
business than the recruiting officer, and was inclined to take the 
patriotism of the volunteer as conclusive evidence of bodily 
soundness. The mustering officer mustered in the lump, what 
the recruiting officer had gathered and the surgeon had passed. 
So there was small efibrt at sifting. The results were some- 
times even ludicrous. One fellow, too short, was passed in 
high-heeled shoes, and grew shorter as time and his shoes wore 
on ; but he made an excellent soldier. Another passed muster 
in a black beard, which soon after disclosed an ever widening 
zone of grey, and he became a veteran prematurely. More 
obscure bodily defects developed on the first hard campaign, 
and speedily furnished ample material for the hospital and 
pension roll. However, by hook or crook the ten companies 
were raised, and from various quarters were transported at the 
Government's expense, to the camp where they were to be 
organized into a regiment. There was some grumbling on 
account of having to ride in a freight car on the part of men 
who afterwards, many times, would have very gladly availed 
themselves of that jolting method of transportation. At the 
rendezvous the company first to arrive found neither quarters 
nor rations, and therefore marched into the city, woke up the 
Mayor, and then relied on his patriotic charity. But the later 
arrivals fared better, and there was plenty of beef and bread. 



The Governor, when he saw the enlistment rolls, and heard 
that the men had been placed in camp at the rendezvous, 
said to himself and his counsellors: "These fellows who have 
recruited so many men and have actually landed them in camp 
must have military ciualifications," and straightway he com- 
missioned them all. Strictly speaking, however, it was not 
straightway, but as soon as tlie clerks could fill out the com- 
missions and the Governor found time to sign them. 

All these assembled recruits and expectant officers presented 
when in camp the general appeaiance of a town meeting. But 
one uniform w^as to be seen ; that was of the gentleman who had 
seen service in the regiment of iS6i ; the uniform of the Mexican 
veteran evidently had been worn out long since. However, 
soon the Major came who had seen some service as a captain in 
an earlier regiment, and who had succeeded in getting himselt 
transferred with an increased rank ; leave of absence and pro- 
motion at the same stroke. He wore a uniform, but looked 
lonesome. However, he had seen a camp and had been in 
a regiment, and had some ideas of what ought to be done. He 
organized a guard whose only weapons at first were those 
given by nature or borrowed from the wood pile. His first 
officer of the day, in a brown cutaway, striped trowsers, 
and a silk hat, bore as insignia of his office a part of a 
military weapon, now discarded, but at that early date in 
use, and known as a ramrod. If there were a sword in 
camp, excepting those of the major commanding and the 
veteran of '6i, its owner must have concealed it, perhaps for 
fear of applications to borrow. Imagine the guard mounting! 
the difficulties of getting into line ; no two hats alike; no uni- 
forms and no two suits alike, and the officer of the day in costume 
approximating that of a Qiiaker, and with a ramrod for a sword ! 
The orders were of a nature of explanation and conference, and 
were the result of an agreement between the officers and men. 



To the credit of all concerned it must be said that these 
agreements were faithfully carried out, and if any fellow pre- 
sumed to disobey the officer of the guard after due remonstrance, 
he was liable to be knocked down and perhaps kicked, according 
to the gravity of the oflence. But there were no accidents from 
tlre-arms. Shot-guns had been left at home and Springfield 
muskets had not arrived. Clothing arrived in boxes in advance 
of the quartermaster, but lack of quartermaster w^as a small 
matter. One of the captains (since a distinguished lawyer), 
was detailed to attend to the business of distributing the clothing, 
and the invoices and vouchers were long afterwards, I believe, 
made up by counting noses and multiplying that factor by the num- 
ber of articles properly allowed each man. By good luck or the 
favor of Providence rations soon became plenty. There was no 
canned roast beef nor those other luxuries much advertised long 
afterwards, as we all know, but there was salt beef in abundance 
and bread and potatoes and coffee. The country boys sorely 
missed their daily pie, but there was no grumbling; the beef and 
potatoes were cooked in the company's kitchen, and sucli were 
the innate good manners of the cooks that the officers were 
served first out of the rations of the men. 

But I anticipate. Prior to the issue of the clothing, and while 
the affairs of the camp were conducted in this go-as-you please 
manner, more civil than military, one evening the Colonel 
arrived, a West Pointer, and recently from service in the regular 
army in the field. At once there seemed to be a general impres- 
sion throughout the camp, which cannot perhaps be expressed 
better than by the use of a phrase common on that ship-building 
coast, " that there was the devil to pay and no pitch hot." 

The Colonel, a thoroughly trained soldier, saw things, to him 
new and strange, and perhaps with a prejudiced eye. It was his 
first experience with volunteers, and he found them in their most 
immature condition. The respectable citizen who seemed to be 



half loafing, half on guard at the Headquarters' tent did not salute, 
and, in fact, had nothing military to salute with, but cheerfully re- 
marked "How do you do, Colonel." Him the Colonel regarded 
as a villain of the deepest dye and perhaps as a fool into the 
bargain. But tliis was all of a piece with the general appearance 
of the camp, so far as the Colonel saw it. Once in the tent he 
sent an orderly disguised as an honest citizen of the State, and 
who did not know, in fact, that he was an orderly, for the officer 
of the day. When that friend appeared, the Colonel piopounded 
questions to him which he had never heard before, and never 
dreamed of. If the Colonel had inquired about hexameter verse 
or the volume of the cycloid, he might have obtained perhaps 
prompt and correct answers. But concerning the details of guard 
mounting and the duties of his office, the embryo Captain and 
Officer of the Guard was as ignorant as a spring chicken; and 
after some fruitless pursuit of information the Colonel expressed 
the opinion that it was "A hell of a regiment," and terminated 
the interview. The officer of the day went out with the impres- 
sion that he had smelled something sulphurous, and that the 
Colonel was correct in his location of the regiment. 

However, the men were speedily put into uniform, company 
books were distributed, and there was a scramble, under pressure 
from Headquarters, for information as to tactics and army regu- 
lations. Commissions for the officers came from the Governor, 
and uniforms from the tailor ; the mustering officer appeared, and 
these miscellaneous gentlemen of various previous occupations 
and training, suddenly became officers and men, in the army of 
the United States, tailor-made and Governor-made. 

Probably the parchments and the textile fabrics had been 
selected with quite as much care and discrimination as the raw 
material which they covered and designated. Certainly the com- 
missions and uniforms were made by rule and in accordance 
with the army regulations. The officers, so far, had simply 
happened. 



lO 



The diverse effect of all these new clothes was remarkable. 
Of course there was no such blaze of glory as that which 
now appears upon the Avenue on occasions of official display ; 
but compared with the sober drabs of civil life, the blue cloth 
with the gold buttons and the new shoulder-straps were com- 
paratively gorgeous. .Some whose youth was more easily 
affected bv the unusual display assumed airs of importance; 
otliers wore their honors with meekness, and some went about 
\vith a settled determination expressed upon their faces to 
attend to business and to ignore as far as possible these honors 
and glories thus suddenly thrust upon them. The camp put 
on a military appearance, and the regiment, if not a lion, was 
at least clothed in the skin of that formidable beast. Arms 
and equipments were procured for two companies, and there 
were feeble attempts to drill. Company K, blessed with an 
officer of some experience, went forward with a bound, and 
the blind leaders of the blind in other companies groped on. 
A drum corps was organized, if that could be said to be organized 
in which every me nber drummed or fifed independently of all 
others. 

The Adjutant and Sergeant-Major were made out of the 
same raw material, and in a few days the regiment reached 
that astounding perfection of drill which permitted it to get into 
line and go from line into column and the reverse. The sound ot 
men counting off, " i, 2," " i, 2," " i, 3," was heard throughout 
the camp, and that wonderful complication in which No. 2 was 
perpetually stepping to the right of No. i, was a daily occurrence, 
and finally came to be understood. Of course the line was not 
at first the shortest distance between two fixed points, and the 
process of going from line into column resembled a convulsion. 

In this advanced stage of the drill, the Colonel determined to 
hold a dress parade. With much running to and fro and nnich 
discord under the theory of drumming and fifing, from the drum 



II 



corps on flank, much exhortation on the part of" the line officers, 
much right-dressinjj^ and let't-th'essing, the regiment was gotten 
approximately into line. The Colonel was in his place in front, 
with his war visage on, and filled with energy and disgust, 
when suddenly and prematurely the drum corps broke loose 
and began to ramble down the line uttering discoicls galore. 
It was very far from " sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 
Then came the first order of the Colonel which, as faithful 
history must record, was the beginning of the militaiy history 
of the regiment as a battalion. The order was : " Captain Bangs, 
stop that damned drumming." The order was directed to 
Captain Bangs from local considerations, he being the Captain 
nearest to the point where the confusion had broken out. It is 
needless to say that neither Captain Bangs nor the drum corps 
heard the order. They would not have heard it had it been 
uttered through a megaphone, and megaphones had not then 
been invented. The Colonel, the noise continuing, and the 
drum corps continuing, grew more and more wrathv, and finally 
charged upon that musical body sword in hand. It was an 
unfair advintage, justifiable only on the ground of military 
necessity. The Colonel was armed and the drum corps had 
only drums and fifes, formidable for offence but not for defence. 
Instantly they were routed and fled, and disappearing around the 
nearest flank, took refuge in the rear. It was the first victory in 
the regiment. It could not be said that this charge reduced 
things to order ; it only tended to suppress disorder. 

What became of the drum corps on that day I do not now 
remember. I have the impression that they retired to the guard- 
house for recuperation. Certainly they appeared no more upon 
the scene that day. and the dress parade proceeded as a school 
of instruction, which the Colonel administered partly to the 
regiment as a whole, and partly to individuals, with distressing 
particularity. Of the instruction given in general terms it is 



12 



sufficient to say that it was of the most elementary character, 
and was such wholesome counsel as an experienced and trained 
officer would give to a green regiment ; only the terms were 
unusually emphatic, and the amount too great for one occa- 
sion. Of the individual exhortations a sample should be pre- 
served to posterity as illustrating the conditions of these times. 
If any be inclined to judge harshly, from the character of these 
exhortations, as to the patience and forbearance and longsufter- 
ing spirit inculcated at West Point, he may consider the trying 
nature of the job suddenly placed upon the graduate of that 
venerable institution (only one year out of the school, and of a 
temper naturally not mild), called upon to direct and drill, in 
one lump, a thousand greenhorns, and charged with the duty of 
making soldiers out of them. Unfortunately, in the center 
of the line, in front and in plain view, was a newly uniformed 
and commissioned Lieutenant, whose nonimc de guerre was 
Simps. On this occasion he was standing much like a tall, full 
meal bag, bulging under its own pressure. The eagle eye of the 
Colonel soon detected him and the wrath accumulated, and un- 
soothed by the strains of the drum corps, broke out afresh. Re- 
ferring in terms of emphatic condemnation to Simps as an 
individual, and assigning his spiritual being to a warmer climate, 
he ordered him to "draw up his bowels." The embarrassed 
Simps, thus singled out and complimented, already feeling him- 
self in too conspicuous a position, and quite too new to the busi- 
ness, and also alarmed at the suddenness and warmth of the 
personal address in front of so large and critical a company, 
made some convulsive movement as if struck by lightning ; but 
either because he had no control over his abdominal muscles, or 
because he was paralyzed by fear, he did not "draw up" per- 
ceptibly. However, Siinps was not the only awkward figure in 
the line, though perhaps the most conspicuous ; and the exhorta- 
tions of the Colonel proceeded, and soon no fellow felt sure that 



13 

some particular exhortation, uncomplimentary and perhaps not 
fully understood, would fall upon him. The attention of the 
Colonel, however, recurred to Simps, no less bulging, but rather 
worse than before: ''Mr. Simps, for God's sake draw up your 
bowels." The miserable Simps could not; his bowels were not 
built that way, and further exhortations followed in the same 
vein, and with increasing emphasis. He was advised to employ 
the worst drilled man in the regiment to teach him, and finally 
was driven into the rear of the regiment, where he disappeared 
to fame, and from whence he soon after retired to private life. 
His military career was short but conspicuous. He had one 
notice from his commanding officer in front of his regiment. He 
was probably, too, the only man in military history, certainly the 
only one whom 1 have found in a somewhat extensive reading, 
who was disabled as to the military service and lost to the 
defence of his country because he could not "draw up his 
bowels." Other heroes, notably in the recent Spanish war, have 
failed to confer luster on the American arms and to secure im- 
mortal fame for themselves simply from lack of opportunity. It 
was reserved to Simps alone to miss the shining mark by reason 
of stomachic distortion. 

This particular lesson, however, was not lost upon the regiment, 
and the enforcement of it was subsequently made easier when in 
the field, by reason of material change in the rations. For some 
days, however, instruction mixed with similar emphatic exhorta- 
tions continued, and the regiment continued to learn military 
drill and a new vocabulary at the same time. 

The regiment had been in camp about a week when, on the 
29th day of August, it was mustered into the service of the 
United States, and soon thereafter was ordered to the front, 
greatly to the relief of all, and especially of those slowest to 
learn. 

After these trials by fire, so to speak, the Government in its 



^4 

wisdom proceeded to give a further seasoning by water, and 
this regiment with another (3,000 men in all) were shipped, 
packed like so many sardines, in one vessel, from Boston to 
Alexandria. This process was perhaps a process of artificial 
aging as of liquor, and served well to assist in the process of 
drawing up the bowels to the regimental standard. 

While the men, packed in the hold of the ship, on this 
voyage, were taking care of themselves as best they could, 
the company officers, under the tutoring of the Colonel, were 
cramming themselves vv'ith Casey's Tactics. 

In due time they passed Alexandria, and, as a cheerful intro- 
duction to the service, saw on the decks of the river steamboats 
the crowds of wounded from the field of the Second Bull Run 
and heard of the disastrous result of that battle. Landed at the 
Arsenal the regiment passed the first night in an adjacent open 
lot, on a downy bed of dead cats, bricks and broken bottles ; the 
next day they were supplied with arms and equipments, and on 
the hot September evening of that day marched without a halt, 
seven miles, and joined the brigade to which the regiment 
had been assigned. 

It is a striking illustration of the pressure of the emergency, 
and of the wasteful unpreparedness of the Government, that 
within three weeks from the day this regiment was mustered 
into service, and before it had ever had what could properly be 
called a battalion drill, it was in the battle of Antietam. But 
subsequently officers and men were instructed and drilled in the 
field, in time snatched from l)attle, marching, picketing, and 
camp duties. They learned the duties of a soldier by performing 
them, and in performing them ; at first laboriously, with difficulty 
and awkwardly. But they learned them well. Of the original 
officers, two served with great distinction and rose to the rank 
of Major-General. And the men so raw and undrilled at first, 
under the severe but wise discipline and thorough instruction, 



15 



became soldiers as good as any that ever carried muskets. 
At Gettysburg, ten months after muster in, thev stood till 40 per 
cent, of their number had been killed or wounded, and then 
charged. That line, so awkward, raw, and unprepared at first, 
in all the subsequent campaigns, from Antietam to Appomattox 
Court House, in fights as stiff, and under fire as searching and 
deadly as any, was never broken. Never! 



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